Standing Firm In Faithful Obedience

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time- October 2, 2022

First Reading: Habakkuk 1:12-17

Responsorial Psalm 37:1-18

Second Reading: 2 Timothy 1:1-10

Gospel Reading: Luke 17:5-10

Father Jun started his homily today with a commendation to all the workers and parishioners of the church for a job well done during the month-long celebration of the church 40 years journey with the Lord. We all did well and naturally, we feel good with all the efforts we’ve put in; but he reminded us to be ready to get back back now to reality, that we need to move forward and continue the tasks God has entrusted to us. The load is too heavy and the roads might be too rough to bear; but today must be the starting point of another fruitful forty years.

The ceremony of symbolic “passing on” of different ministry heads to the younger generation during our Gala Night celebration signifies that great responsibilities await them. We, the older ones, also have a great  to educate, to nurture, and to train them. For what they will be in the future depends on the kind of seed we plant on them.

Our gospel today talks about faith. The apostles have been asking Jesus how to increase their faith.  We should also be asking this from God. For the next forty years, we could never fulfill what He has given to us unless we have faith. We can find comfort in Jesus’ answer to His disciples, “If you have faith as a mustard seed…” meaning, what we have right now is more than enough already to act upon. God has given us a measure of faith. It is not how big or how small our faith is; it’s the quality of faith God has given to us. We have been given the faith of Jesus, that faith which made Him overcome all the problems He faced, even the cross! And that is the kind of faith we need today. All we need to do is plant it; act upon it today, because the secret in faith increasing is action.

What action shall we do then? Obedience! Keep obeying the Lord. The little things we do every day for the Lord allow us to plant the seed of faith in our heart. We activate faith that can do the impossible once we choose to obey God. And as a servant of God, we ought to obey. A good servant is a picture of obedience. We are not in control of our life, of the circumstances around, we only need to set in our mind and hearts to obey God because in life, the only test God has given us is obedience.

The next forty years of our journey as a church might not be a bed of roses. We are uncertain of the circumstances that might happen. But having that servant-like attitude of being obedient will allow us to be mature in the Lord. We are designed to mature and bear fruits as Christians. Maturity comes when we learn to do what we need to do, even if we don’t like it. And obedience allows us to grow in maturity, to begin to bear fruits in our life, to increase our faith, and to overcome the next 40 years as a church. As a people of God, Father Jun encourages us “to begin our new journey; to cultivate obedience in our hearts, decide once and for all that as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Let us start teaching our children and eventually pass on to them the legacy of faith, the legacy of obedience. Primate Dick once said, “We will not just survive, but we will thrive in the midst of difficult circumstances.”

As Apostle Paul told to Timothy…”stir up the gifts that are within you” we need also to stir our gifts. And what is our gift? Our calling as a community, as a church. Let us remain faithful in obedience to the One and Only God we serve.

Recap by:

MERCY DE LA CRUZ-ESPIRITU

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25th Sunday Mass in Ordinary Time

Theme: Standing Firm in Trustworthiness

First Reading: Amos 8:4-12

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 113:1-3,4-6,7-9

Second Reading: 1 Timothy 2:1-7

Gospel Reading: Luke 16:1-12

God calls us to be servants. We should realize that once He calls us, He trusts us. All of us have been called and the scriptures encourage us that we should live worthy of that trust.

There are two things that we can learn about what makes a trustworthy person. First is his honesty and the other one is his wisdom. We should be people who know what we need to do. We need to cultivate these values in our lives for us to be worthy of God’s trust.

We are all stewards of God’s creation and today’s gospel teaches us how to become good and faithful ones. Whether we like it or not, the truth is that everything we have right now is not really ours. These are just entrusted to us and one day, we are going to give an account to the Owner of these things.  In the parable, we learn that Jesus is not promoting dishonesty.

Instead, we can see that no matter how simple or worst the situation is, Jesus can always find the good and best. He teaches us to use wisdom in all our dealings.

Here are five ways how we can apply wisdom in our dealings with life:

1. Learn to invest. Invest in eternal things. As a steward, everything entrusted to us has value. However, earthly investments are bound by time. Jesus then teaches us to use our earthly possessions for eternity.
2. Relationship is more important than money. Jesus wants us to use our money, our wealth, our talents, and energy to build friends and relationships. Do not put money over relationships. Rather, let it work for your relationships.
3. Invest your wealth. To be wise, invest not only in material things but especially in spiritual things. Save lives, save souls, and help the needy.
4. Always start small. Never despise small beginnings. Use what you have right now. Focus on the daily little things. Start from your family, your work, and later on, your community.
5. Practice faithfulness. Be faithful to things that are not yours. If we are faithful to the little things God entrusted us, then He will entrust us with greater things to do.

We are trustworthy every time we use God’s wisdom. Let us choose to be God-filled wisdom people, Church.

Recap by:

MERCY DE LA CRUZ-ESPIRITU

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24th Sunday Mass in Ordinary Time

Theme: Standing Firm in God’s Forgiveness

First Reading: Exodus 32:7-14

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 51:1-2,6-8,9-11

Second Reading: 1 Timothy 1:12-17

Gospel Reading: Luke 15:1-10

Today’s homily started with a story that was shared to Father Jun. It is about an ancient tradition story in Israel where God tested Moses if he could shepherd Israelites from Egypt. As a shepherd, Moses lost one of his sheep and God tested him on what he would do. After two days of looking, he finally found the lost sheep and instead of getting mad, Moses jumped for joy, cuddled the sheep, while kissed it and carried it on his shoulder as they went home. Like many other leaders, Moses also has a lot of weaknesses. But when God saw how he responded to his lost sheep, He saw that Moses will truly be the shepherd of His people. As a leader, he should be strong but at the same time he should possess tenderness of heart toward the sheep. And that is why God chose Moses because of that character he possessed. God tested the person not to show his weakness but that he might find his own strength also.

Two kinds of people are featured in our gospel reading today. The first kind are those who are willing to welcome Christ; and second kind are those who are offended always by Christ’s words. The first ones were the sinners and tax collectors, but when they heard the word of Christ, they welcomed, listened and were interested. The second ones, the Pharisees, were considered to be righteous, the ones who knew  scriptures, the ones who were supposedly “God-fearing people” were offended by Christ’s teachings. Among these kinds of people, which one are we?

The gospel message today is summed up with this: “Jesus revealed the heart of God to all the people.” Jesus is the revelation of who God is. Sinners become interested with God because He reveals how merciful God is. As sinners, when we hear about the mercy of God, we become hopeful. It is a good news for us. But for others, they cannot hear Christ; they did not welcome his words. Why? Because they believe that they don’t sin, they have not done wrong. Church, we will never appreciate the mercy of God until we realize in our own life that we are sinners!

The two parables shared by Jesus today in the gospel reveals the very essence of who God is. He is a God who never gets tired of looking for us. He never stops forgiving our sins when we repent; who would love us in spite of our failures. God delights when a sinner finds his way back to Him; He rejoices when someone  repents and goes back to Him. He doesn’t mind nor count what we have done nor the extent of our sin; He is simply delighted once we turn and go back to Him.

The life of St. Paul displays the mercy of God. Whenever we see him we are reminded that if God can transform and use the worst sinner, He can do the same to me as well. We are called not to judge but to display the mercy of God. Jesus shares a description of God in this way that we may become “God-conscious”. When we become so focused and aware of His mercy, we will not sin as much. And the issue when we sin, is that we hide from God. We hide because we are afraid to be seen by Him. We are never lost to God when we sin; God becomes lost to us, when we sin.

Repentance is the message of God in our scripture reading today. How God would rejoice once we turn from our sin and present ourselves back to Him. We need to acknowledge and take responsibility of our sin. Do not isolate yourself. Instead, realize that life would never get better without God. So, stand up, focus and celebrate the mercies of God for life will only be merrier when we become God-conscious!

Recap by:

MERCY DE LA CRUZ-ESPIRITU

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19th Sunday in Ordinary Time – August 7, 2022

Theme: Standing Firm with Proper Focus

First Reading: Genesis 15:1-6

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 33:1-22

Second Reading: Hebrews 11:1-2

Gospel Reading: Luke 12:32-37

Homily by Fr. Romie- Jun Peñalosa

The beauty of having a sacramental and liturgical church is that we learn and celebrate the different seasons of life throughout the year. Advent teaches us peace, hope, love, and joy and in Christmas, we learn that “Christ is with us”. But among these – Ordinary Time is the longest season we celebrate. Why? “So that the church, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, may have enough time to apply everything from the beginning of the year.” (Fr. Jun)

We value life because we celebrate life. And every Sunday, as we gather as a community, is a celebration of life. We learn the value of life not just by sitting and hearing the lectures but we learn it through our whole being. Every season brings truth in us; and every lesson must be applied. The blessings of God come to our lives once we know the truth and once we walk in the truth. That’s why the emphasis of Ordinary Time is to establish us in our faith. We are given time to reflect and manifest in our lives the lessons we have learned. As hearers of His word, we should be overcomers of problems, we should be strong as a people, and victorious in our lives. Yet it seems that among the many lessons we learned, we are still experiencing the same cycle of life. We still haven’t had breakthroughs from problems and we are easily swayed by our emotions. Many of us have been destroyed by “galit”, “poot” at “tampo” that we tend to walk away from our calling, from our commitment to Him. “Do not allow emotions to take the best of you” (Fr. Jun) We are called to heal and prosper in our life, so let us not allow these bad emotions to ruin us and let us stand firm in our convictions. “We live by faith, not by sight”.

Lessons from the gospel today:

1. We should not be afraid. As a people of God, we need to take our stand. Because no matter what happens to the world, in the end, there is always God. Let us not live in fear and let us not allow it to control our lives. Why? Because we have the LOVE of God. “Perfect love alone can drive all fears” and to be able to walk in life without fear, we need to establish the truth that God loves us so much that He gave His only and most valuable Son as well the whole kingdom for us! We need to encounter and experience the love of God that we may treasure Him in our life.
2. We should be prepared. Everyday is an opportunity to be of service to other people. We should be prepared always. Let us keep our faith alive and burning every day because we cannot consistently serve the Lord if we have a weak faith in Him. We should remember the truth that Christ is coming again and that when we meet Him, we should be prepared.

Christian life is serious. It is lived out deliberately by choice. Our life should not be moved by what we see, what we hear, what we feel; but we should be moved by the Word of God. We are not Christians tossed to and fro by the waves of circumstances around. We have been walking with the Lord for years and years now, been in journey and pilgrimage with Him; so we must be teachers already of the Word of God. We need to stand firm in our conviction, in our commitment, in our faith, in what we believe in God. We are a mountain, immovable in the midst of the ocean, just like our God. And as God’s people, we know we have a strong God, that’s why we need to be firm – and this is what Ordinary Time teaches us!

Recap by:

MERCY DE LA CRUZ-ESPIRITU

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18th Sunday in Ordinary Time – July 31, 2022

Theme: Storing True Incorruptible Riches

First Reading: Ecclesiastes 2:18-23

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 49:1-12

Second Reading: Colossians 3:1-11

Gospel Reading: Luke 12:13-21

Homily by Fr. Romie- Jun Peñalosa

There are really things that we need to understand and learn in life. And today, Father Jun teaches us one of the most powerful lessons that we need to understand.

Our gospel reading today clearly teaches us that Jesus is not condemning wealth. He is not even against desiring more wealth. The story of a man asking Jesus to divide their family inheritance is a story we could  relate to. Family feuds over inheritance, over material wealth have been existing even before the time of Jesus.  Jesus sensed greediness as the core of this problem, therefore He refused to be a judge or arbitrator in this situation. Instead, he saw the situation as an opportunity to teach and address the real issue of greed. The parable of the rich man teaches us to value the things of heaven which are “incorruptible”. We are a people caught up in greed and oftentimes this causes us to desire more and forget God as the true source of richness.

“Be on your guard against all forms of greed. Life is not about the abundance of possessions.” and “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”  Two powerful verses taken from the parable that Jesus emphasize to address the common issue we all can relate to – greediness. Greed is the excessive desire to have more and more and more…of material possessions. It has many forms – it could be covetousness, lusts and avarices. “Be on guard”! Jesus is giving us a warning against these, because if we will not be watchful, these might enter our hearts and will take control of our life. His warning is about unbalance and wrong focus of life. He is never against us desiring to become rich, but if our desire of wealth will lead us to move away from the essential things of life, our family and Him – then it’s where the problem starts.

Lesson from the parable:

1. Do not think that things, wealth, or possessions can bring meaning to life. The rich man in the parable was too focused on himself. He didn’t even think of family, or of God – just things he could acquire more, for he thought that those could give him security in life. He thought that material things could give meaning to life. But he failed to realize that the lust for anything including possessions, soon become impossible to control and become harder to find satisfaction in.
2. Do not assume you know your future. Do not invest everything in your life on a future that you cannot control. Understand that you must be ready to live life every day as if it’s your last day. Be prepared, because death is certain for all of us.
3. Don’t just invest materially; invest spiritually. One foolishness of the rich man in the parable is that he devoted himself to work for prosperity and devoted nothing to the One who gave him everything, including his life. There is no wasted time devoted to God. He is never against us desiring to become rich in wealth, but let us never forget to desire more to become rich in Him.

Only God can satisfy us. Do not ever think that life will flow from the abundance of your possession. King David knows this exactly as he wrote Psalm 23. Money and possessions alone cannot give us that happiness in our entire life. They can ease and make life simpler, but they cannot satisfy the longing of our hearts. Live each day as if it is “our day”; seize the moment for there is no promise of another day once our “last” day ends!

Recap by:

MERCY DE LA CRUZ-ESPIRITU

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16th Sunday in Ordinary Time – July 17, 2022

Theme: Unwavering Faith to the Father’s Goodness

First Reading: Genesis 18:20-33

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 138:1-8

Second Reading: Colossians 2:8–14

Gospel Reading: Luke 11:5-13

Homily by Fr. Romie- Jun Peñalosa

“Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be open to you”.

We have heard this scripture many times already and we know what it’s teaching us – to pray always. Today’s gospel really encourages us to pray. Father Jun reminded us of the legacy of faith Primate Ricardo has passed on to us and that we have to continue learning from it and standing on it. But aside from this, he also taught us the importance of prayer. As seen in his life, he was truly a man of prayer.

Do we really pray? Have we come to a point that prayer is like breathing to us? Many Christians have abandoned prayer. They go to church,  worship, minister, and do woks – but they lost their prayer life; that passion and burning desire to be in the presence of the Lord, conversing with Him and lifting their minds to Him. Why? Because of discouragement. Many easily get discouraged when they pray and cannot see the answer.

As a house of prayer, Father Jun emphasized the importance of praying. We need to keep that burning passion to be with God in prayer. Why are we discouraged to pray? Father Jun reminded us today, that God would like us to see the answers to all our prayers! But before it could happen, let us get rid of all the discouragements in our hearts and change the way we see God.  We are discouraged because sometimes we have developed that wrong perception of God. We somehow see Him as a reluctant old man. But NO, God is more than willing to give us what we are praying for.  We have not because we ask not!  (St. James). And why don’t we ask? It’s because sometimes, we see God as someone who will answer us if we can convince Him. He is not a Lord that we need to convince because He is convinced already of our needs. The secret to answered prayer is – we should know first how to ask God.

Three things to develop in prayer life:

1. We should pray shamelessly. Pray with boldness, with confidence to God. Though we are sinners, He sent Jesus to cleanse us from our sins so that we can stand before Him blameless. He gives to us because He loves us so much! And He knows our needs even before we ask.
2. We need to pray persistently. Never give up in prayer even if you haven’t seen the answer yet. Continue and be persistent. Do not be content to ask once and move on. Jesus himself taught us that we are to continually and persistently bring our prayers to the Father.
3. Pray expectantly. Pray expecting an answer. Believe that what you have asked, you will receive.

God knows what is good and best for us. He doesn’t settle for less. He gives what we ask, not today but definitely on the best and perfect time. So we have nothing to be doubtful for our interest is in His heart!

Recap by:

MERCY DE LA CRUZ-ESPIRITU

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16th Sunday in Ordinary Time – July 17, 2022

Theme: Giving Importance To What Is Valuable in Life

First Reading: Genesis 18:1–10

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 15:1-5

Second Reading: Colossians 1:15-23

Gospel Reading: Luke 10:38-42

Homily by Fr. Romie- Jun Peñalosa

We Filipinos are known for our hospitality. It is part of our culture and foreigners often keep coming back here because they find it unique and loveable. Hospitality is as important during Biblical times too. Performing tasks of hospitality entails service; it is so vital in the church in welcoming our community.

The church, in order to grow, must be hospitable. Doing service for the people, making them welcome, and letting them feel they belong in the community. But sometimes, there is a danger when we begin to be too busy because of the service that we want to give. When busyness begins to trouble us, we become worried and distracted in life. So does it mean we will only just sit down, listen, and pray to God? Doesn’t Jesus want us to become busy doing works in the ministry? We can find then in our gospel today, that like Mary, Jesus wanted us to give importance to what is vital and most valuable in life. God reminded us that He is not against us when we are busy; when we do the work of serving Him and other people; when we actively participate in the life of the church as a community. What Christ is confronting in us is when we become too busy, we tend to become distracted and anxious and joyless in doing the works. Our focus becomes distorted and we don’t know already what direction we’re going through.

The goal of hospitality is to pay attention to your guest. But Martha failed to do this because she was distracted and eventually became anxious of many things. Many of us are like Martha, “worried and upset with so many things”. We worry too much and get distracted. But Jesus said in the scriptures, “Do not worry”. He keeps on reminding us; for worry doesn’t bring any good nor add many days in our lives. So, what shall we do then? “Sit down, rest in the presence of God and pay attention to what He is saying to us.”

We live in a culture of hectic schedules and live in times of relentless pursuit of productivity. We are tempted to measure our worth by how busy we are, by what we have accomplished in life, and by how well we meet the expectations of others. But then we begin to realize that our worth is not taken from our busyness, or how much we accomplished. We realize “who we are” and that we are God’s children, and He loves us whether we produce or not. Our self-worth is derived from our relationship with God Who dearly values our life! We often forget this, because we become too busy and become worried of many things. If our activities leave us no time to become still in God’s presence and hear God’s words, we are likely to end up anxious and troubled; we end doing a service that is devoid of love and joy and is resentful of other people. We are supposed to love and enjoy the job God has given us. A service to God without love and joy is nothing, no matter how great it is. Where do we get that joy? In His presence. Spending time with Him every day, listening, and resting on Him.

“Trying to serve God without being nourished by God’s words, is like expecting good fruit from a tree that is uprooted.” Same with us, when we detach ourselves from the presence of God; we don’t have time anymore to listen and experience His loving presence…we are uprooting ourselves and trying to produce fruit that no longer has connection to Him. Both listening and doing, receiving God’s words and serving others, are important to the Christian life.

Mother Theresa once said, “Don’t attempt to do great things for God, instead, do little things for God, with great love and joy everyday.”

Recap by:

MERCY DE LA CRUZ-ESPIRITU

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